September 14, 2015

A couple of weeks ago there was some situation at the Goodlife Fitness Gym I frequent where a customer was using chalk and a bunch of managers and staff went out to tell him he shouldn’t. But, before they approached him they talked each other up saying: “What are you?” “I’m a ten!”

Some trainers and other staff kind of rolled there eyes, but others, especially the fitness manager was very into it. From what I understand, many of them attended a session at the CanFitPro expo earlier that week and “I’m a ten!” was a takeaway saying. I guess it’s something that Goodlife Fitness’ CEO David Patchell-Evans preaches all the time.

Ima 10!

After the incident of the guy with the chalk, the Fitness Manager continued to try to preach the “I’m a ten” mantra. She came by me and said “What are you?” and in the lamest, least convincing fashion I half-heatedly answered “I’m a ten.” She told me I need to work on that.

For such a simple empowering phrase, there’s so much complication to it.

On the simplest level, I know the inherent value of such self-proclamations. Genuinely believing enough to shout that you’re a 10 out of 10 means having an obscene amount of confidence and self-assuredness. It implies that you know you’re awesome, valuable, and amazing.
Think of the places you could go with that attitude! Imagine approaching every task, especially the seemingly impossible ones with the mindset of I’m awesome and we can do it! Imagine walking into a room for an interview or presentation with the confidence of a “ten.” Or, just imagine waking up every morning valuing yourself as a ten: You’d do nice things to someone so important like eat healthy, exercise, smile, and generally do right by everyone around you.

But, and of course there’s a ‘but,’ such self-aggrandizing can be dangerously delusional. Imagine walking into a meeting acting like a bigshot, when real experts and executives are present. Someone might be offended by the artificial bravado, or cut right through your bullshit. Such overconfidence is often synonymous with the inexperience of youth.

And inherently, wouldn’t being a “10 out of 10” be rather demotivating? I mean, believing that you’re perfect would mean there’s nothing more to work towards. It would be really easy to rest on your laurels, so to speak. I guess I’d rather believe I’m an 9.5: Close to perfection but still needing to work towards it.

However, it would be nice to believe. It would be nice to have that confidence.